The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: The Madison Symphony Orchestra is offering an unlimited, season-starting single ticket sale with 20 percent off, through this Saturday
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By Jacob Stockinger
For the first time ever, the Madison Symphony Orchestra (below, in a photo by Peter Rodgers) is offering a sale on tickets to the first three concerts this season.
You will get 20 percent off if you buy tickets through the Overture Center box office in person, by phone (608 258-4141) or online at https://www.overture.org/events
The discount code to say or use is FIRST3SYMPHONY.
Be forewarned: You will NOT find the ticket sale on the MSO website.
There is no limit of how many tickets you can buy, says MSO marketing director Peter Rodgers who also said the traditional holiday ticket sale, with two-tiered discount pricing, will take place as usual from Dec. 16 through Dec. 31.
The season-starting sale runs through this coming Saturday, Aug. 31. You can get discounted single tickets to the concerts on Sept. 27-29, Oct. 18-20 and Nov. 8-10 with performances on Fridays at 7:30 p.m., Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday afternoons at 2:30 p.m.
Ticket prices range from $19-$95, up about 2 percent from last year to keep up with inflation, Rodgers added.
Why isn’t the sale on the MSO website?
“We did it digitally and in a printed brochure that we mailed out just to try and reach out to either season subscribers or people who have already bought single tickets before and have already been to the symphony,” says Rodgers. “We just wanted to give some people a little nudge. But anyone can take advantage of the sale.”
Rodgers also said that the inaugural sale is not being held because ticket sales are slow. “Ticket sales for this season are competitive with last season’s,” he said, adding that some buyers might use the sale to get tickets as birthday gifts or for other special occasions.
Although there is no limit to the number of single tickets an individual can buy, Rodgers said that once you get to 10, you are better off going with the usual 25 percent off group rate.
MSO music director John DeMain (below, in a photo by Greg Anderson) will conduct all performances of the first three concerts.
The September concerts open the season with MSO organ soloist Greg Zelek (below) and features the Overture to the opera “Tannhauser” by Richard Wagner; the “Toccata Festiva” by Samuel Barber; the tone poem “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun” by Claude Debussy; and the Symphony No. 7 by Antonin Dvorak.
The October concerts feature guest violinist Rachel Barton Pine. The all-Russian and all-20th century program includes the Violin Concerto by Aram Khachaturian; the Symphony No. 9 by Dmitri Shostakovich; and the Suite from “Lieutenant Kije,” for trumpet and orchestra, by Sergei Prokofiev.
The November concerts feature guest pianist Joyce Yang. The program is the Symphony No. 2 by Robert Schumann; the Piano Concerto No. 3 by Sergei Prokofiev; and “Newly Drawn Sky” by the Pulitzer Prize-winning and Grammy Award-winning contemporary American composer Aaron Jay Kernis, who teaches at the Yale University School of Music. (You can hear “Newly Drawn Sky” in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
For more details about the three opening concerts and the entire 2019-20 season, including complete programs, go to: https://madisonsymphony.org/concerts-events/2019-2020-symphony-season-concerts/
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Classical music: The Token Creek Chamber Music Festival starts this Friday and marks 30 years with jazz plus music by Bach, Mozart, Liszt, Brahms, Ravel, Schoenberg and John Harbison
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By Jacob Stockinger
Starting this coming Friday, Aug. 16, and running through Sept. 1, the Token Creek Chamber Music Festival will mark its 30th anniversary with the theme of “Sanctuary.” (The festival takes place in a refurbished barn, below, at 4037 Highway 19 in DeForest.)
Add the festival directors: “The term ‘sanctuary’ attempts to capture in a single word something essential about what the festival has meant to players and listeners over all these years. From the start it aspired to offer something of retreat, an oasis, a place of refreshment and nourishment in art, both for musician participants who find a welcoming environment to “re-charge” their work, and for audience attendees who engage in and become a part of it.”
“In our small country barn,” writes prize-winning composer John Harbison (below top, in a photo by Tom Artin) who co-directs the festival with his violinist wife Rose Mary Harbison (below bottom, in a photo by Tom Artin), “we have always remained devoted to the scale and address of much chamber music, which speaks as often in a whisper as in a shout.
“Where larger musical institutions have been habitually frustrated by trying to live in the business model of growth, we have remained devoted to the intensity of the experience, which explains why the music never goes away, rather than to claims of numbers, which begs the music itself to change its very nature.
“Our conviction is that today’s composers, just like Schubert and Mozart, are still striving to embody daily experience, to connect to the natural world, and to ask philosophically and spiritually unanswerable questions, surrounded and interrupting silence, asking only for our most precious commodity — time. We continue to look for valuable ways to offer this transaction to our listeners, and are grateful for their interest over so many years.”
The first two concerts, at 5 p.m., on Friday and Saturday nights, feature the return of a jazz cabaret featuring standard works in the Great American Songbook. For more information about the program and performers, as well as tickets, go to: www.tokencreekfestival.org or call (608) 241-2525.
Tickets for the two jazz concerts are $40 for the balcony and $45 for cafe seating. Tickets for the other concerts are $32 with a limited number of student tickets available for $12.
HERE IS THE LINEUP FOR THE REST OF THE FESTIVAL
Program 2: Music of Brahms at 4 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 24, and Sunday, Aug. 25
Johannes Brahms is the only composer whose complete catalogue of chamber music is still in constant use. This is due to his fastidious high standards, and to his ideal temperament for music played by smaller groups of players. His music is universally admired for the astounding combination of sheer craft and deep emotional impact.
The program includes the Regenlied (Rain Song), Op. 57 no. 3; Sonata for Violin and Piano in G major, Op. 78; the Sonata for Cello and Piano in E minor, Op. 38; and the Piano Quartet in C minor, Op. 60. (The “Rain Song” is used as the theme of the last movement of the violin sonata. You can hear it performed by violinist Leonidas Kavakos and pianist Yuja Wang in the YouTube video at the bottom, which also features the score so that you can follow along.)
Performers are Edgewood College mezzo-soprano Kathleen Otterson (below top); violinist Rose Mary Harbison; violist Lila Brown (below second); cellist Rhonda Rider (below third, in a photo by Liz Linder); and pianist Janice Weber (below bottom).
Program 3: Then and Now, Words and Music – An 80th Birthday Tribute to John Harbison. Wednesday, Aug. 28, at 7:30 p.m.
Last February, when Madison launched a citywide celebration of co-artistic director John Harbison’s 80th birthday, bitter cold and deep snow made it impossible for the festival to open up The Barn and join in the festivities.
The Wednesday program – an intimate concert of words and music curated by the Harbisons — is the festival’s belated birthday tribute. Harbison will read from his new book about Johann Sebastian Bach, and Boston poet Lloyd Schwartz (below top) will offer a reading of his poems that are the basis of a song cycle to presented by baritone Simon Barrad (below bottom). The evening will include a discussion on setting text, “Poem to Song,” and the world premiere of new Harbison songs, still in progress, on poems of Gary Snyder.
The program includes: Selections from the Violin Sonata in B minor, with violinist Rose Mary Harbison, and “The Art of Fugue” by Johann Sebastian Bach; “Four Songs of Solitude” and “Nocturne” by John Harbison; the Violin Sonata in G Major by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; the “Phantasy” for violin and piano by Arnold Schoenberg; the “SchwartzSongs” and “Four Poems for Robin” by John Harbison.
Program 4: The Piano , at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 31, and Sunday, Sept. 1.
The closing program welcomes back husband-and-wife pianists Robert Levin and Ya-Fei Chuang, playing together and as soloists.
Chuang (below top) is acclaimed by critics in the U.S. and abroad for performances of stunning virtuosity, refinement and communicative power. Levin (below bottom, in a photo by Clive Barda), who teaches at Harvard University, is revered for his Mozart completions and classical period improvisations.
Their program explores the question of the composer-performer — that is, composers who were also formidable pianists: Mozart, Ravel and Liszt.
Beethoven’s fourth piano concerto, arranged by the composer for chamber ensemble, and excerpts of Harbison’s Piano Sonata No. 2, written for Levin, will be performed. Also on the program are Mozart’s Allegro in G Major, K. 357 (completion by Robert Levin); Maurice Ravel’s “Gaspard de la Nuit”; and Franz Liszt’s “Reminiscences of Don Juan.”
Other performers are: violinists Rose Mary Harbison and Laura Burns, of the Madison Symphony Orchestra and Rhapsodie String Quartet; violists Jen Paulson and Kaleigh Acord; cellist Karl Lavine, who is principal cello of both the Madison Symphony Orchestra and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra as well as the Chamber Music Director of the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO); and double bassist Ross Gilliland.
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Classical music: The New Milwaukee Consort performs Renaissance and early Baroque love songs this Monday night in Spring Green
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Rural Musicians Forum will present the New Milwaukee Consort in a program of Baroque love songs on this coming Monday, Aug. 5, at 7:30 p.m. at the Unity Chapel in Spring Green.
This group of professionals and experts in early music includes soprano Kristin Knutson (below top), who competed in the 2015 Handel Aria Competition in Madison (in the YouTube video at the bottom); cellist and viol player Charlie Rasmussen (below middle); and lutenist Tim Sterner Miller (below bottom). They will perform on period instruments, bringing audiences back in time to the courts and chambers of Italy, England and France.
The New Milwaukee Consort is dedicated to the music of the European Renaissance and Baroque eras, crafting intimate performances around stories in words and music that resonate across the centuries.
They particularly relish bringing lesser-known sounds of the 17th century to modern audiences, from the work of women composers such as Barbara Strozzi (below) to music from handwritten manuscripts documenting the early development of the cello and ongoing experiments on the lute.
This concert features music from the chamber cantatas of the Venetian singer and composer Strozzi to celebrate her 400th birthday as well as works by her compatriots Claudio Monteverdi and Taruinio Merula; Elizabethan songs by lutenist and composer John Dowland (below); and “airs de cour” (Court music) by French court composer Etienne Moulinie.
Interwoven with these vocal works are pieces for the lute by Dowland and his contemporary Nicholas Vallet; for the viola da gamba by Tobia Hume and Marin Marais (below); and for the cello by Giulio Ruvo, Francesco Supriani and Giuseppe Jacchini.
This is an opportunity to enjoy some of the most precious pieces of Renaissance and Baroque era in the beautiful Unity Chapel (below) designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
The Chapel is located at 6597 County Highway T in Spring Green.
Admission is by free will offering, with a suggested donation of $15.
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Classical music: The Madison Area Youth Chamber Orchestra (MAYCO) will give two FREE afternoon performances this Saturday and Sunday with the world premiere of a socially relevant piece by local composer Lawren Brianna Ware
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By Jacob Stockinger
The Madison Area Youth Chamber Orchestra (MAYCO, below) will present its ninth season this weekend, performing two free afternoon concerts.
Co-directed by the husband-and-wife team of conductor Mikko Rankin Utevsky (below left) and concertmaster Thalia Coombs (below back), the orchestra will perform music of Haydn, Wagner and Grieg, plus a commissioned work from local composer Lawren Brianna Ware.
Performances are Saturday, Aug. 3, at noon on the “Grace Presents” concert series at Grace Episcopal Church, located downtown at 116 West Washington Avenue on the Capitol Square; and on Sunday, Aug. 4, at 12:30 p.m. in the Mead Witter Lobby of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Chazen Museum of Art, as part of “Sunday Afternoon Live at the Chazen.”
(Please note that Sunday’s concert is NOT in the Brittingham Gallery III due to space constraints.) Sunday’s performance will be live-streamed on the Chazen website. Here is a link to the portal for streaming: https://www.chazen.wisc.edu/index.php?/events-calendar-demo/event/sunday-afternoon-live-at-the-chazen7/
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
Utevsky and Coombs offer the following comments about the program:
We’re excited to be working with Lawren Brianna Ware (below) on a new work she composed for us, Un sueño aplazado (A Dream Deferred – a quote from the African-American poet Langston Hughes), which chronicles the emotional trajectory of a migrant’s journey from Central America to the United States.
Our two high school Conducting Apprentices, Luke Whittingham (below top) and Quinn Wilson (below bottom) will each conduct one performance of a movement from Edvard Grieg’s Holberg Suite. Whittingham conducts on Saturday and Wilson does so on Sunday.
Richard Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll is a luxurious tone poem for small orchestra that he composed as a love letter to his wife Cosima, first performed on the staircase of their villa in Switzerland on her birthday. Often chamber orchestras don’t get the chance to dig into the great German Romantic repertoire, but this gem is a notable — and unforgettably beautiful — exception. (You can hear it in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
We conclude our program with Franz Joseph Haydn’s final symphony, No. 104. Nicknamed the “London,” it is one of 12 symphonies he wrote for performances there late in his career, and it remains one of his finest essays in symphonic form.
MAYCO is made possible by a grant from the Madison Arts Commission, with additional funds from the Wisconsin Arts Board.
For more information about the Madison Area Youth Chamber Orchestra, go to www.mayco.org or call (608) 514-5537.
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Classical music: Next season the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra will expand to two performances of its winter Masterworks concerts by adding a Saturday night concert in Brookfield, near Milwaukee
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By Jacob Stockinger
Next season will mark the 20th anniversary of Andrew Sewell (below top) coming to Madison to serve as the music director and principal conductor of the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (below bottom).
It is hard to imagine a better Bravo! or anniversary gift for the maestro – who has said he wants the WCO to become a chamber orchestra, as its name implies, for the entire state of Wisconsin — than what will in fact take place: the WCO will expand its winter Masterworks concerts to two performances by adding a Saturday night performance at 7:30 p.m. in the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts (below) in Brookfield, a suburb of Milwaukee. (Sewell is also the music director of the San Luis Obispo Symphony in California.)
Madison performances of Masterworks will continue to take place at 7:30 p.m. on Friday night in the Capitol Theater of the Overture Center.
You can find out more about the Masterworks programs for next season by going to the WCO home website:
https://wisconsinchamberorchestra.org/performance-listing/category/masterworks
There you will find the usual eclectic mix of new guest artists and new or neglected composers and repertoire that has marked Sewell’s tenure and brought him critical acclaim.
Pianist Orion Weiss will perform the popular Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K. 467 – “Elvira Madigan” – by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; violinists Giora Schmidt and Eric Silberger will perform concertos by Dmitri Kabalevsky and Niccolo Paganini, respectively; harpist Yolanda Kondonassis will perform a concerto by Argentinian Alberto Ginastera; and Andrew Balio (below), principal trumpet of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, will return to Madison where he grew up and perform a 1948 trumpet concerto by Italian composer Andre Tomasi.
Early music and new music to be featured includes works by: Donald Fraser (an acclaimed English conductor, composer and arranger, below) who now lives in Illinois, and often comes to Madison); Joseph Martin Kraus, known as the “Swedish Mozart”; Norwegian composer Johann Svensen; and three English composers (always favorites of Sewell who was born and educated in New Zealand) who are John Marsh, James Macmillan and York Bowen. (In the YouTube video at the bottom you can hear the English Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Kenneth Woods — a native Madisonian who will return next season to conduct the Madison Symphony Orchestra — recording the Scherzo movement from Donald Fraser’s “Sinfonietta,” the same work that the WCO will perform.)
Works by Franz Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Felix Mendelssohn and Sergei Prokofiev also figure prominently, including Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 “Jupiter” and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 “Pastoral” in honor of the composer’s 250th birthday in 2020.
Also on the website, you will find the upcoming season of Wednesday night Concerts on the Square for this summer (June 26-July 31) plus the dates and themes – although no guest artists or works — for 2020 (June 24-July 29).
Go to: https://wisconsinchamberorchestra.org/performances
You can also find information for next season about the WCO performing George Frideric Handel’s “Messiah,” Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s ballet “The Nutcracker” with the Madison Ballet; the Young Artist Concerto Competition; the free Family Series; and the community Super Strings program for elementary students.
To receive a brochure with information about all these events and about how to get tickets — an “early bird” discount on subscription tickets runs through May 31– call (608) 257-0638 or go to: https://wisconsinchamberorchestra.org
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Classical music: Bach Around the Clock marks Johann Sebastian’s 334th birthday next Saturday with a FREE 12-hour celebration. Here is the full schedule. Plus, Parry Karp plays all-French cello music on Thursday night
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ALERT: This coming Thursday night, Feb. 28, at 7:30 p.m. in Mills Hall, UW-Madison cellist Parry Karp, of the Pro Arte Quartet, will perform a FREE all-French recital with longtime piano partner Eli Kalman of the UW-Oshkosh. The program includes the Cello Sonata by Claude Debussy; the Cello Sonata by Albéric Magnard; “Granada” from “Foreign Evenings” by Louis Vierne; and Cello Sonata No. 1 by Camille Saint-Saens. For more information, go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/faculty-recital-parry-karp-cello-and-eli-kalman-piano-2/
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By Jacob Stockinger
The event is coming a couple of weeks earlier than the actual birthday on March 21.
But next Saturday, March 2, from 10 a.m. until 10 p.m., the annual Bach Around the Clock will celebrate the 334th birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750).
At 10 p.m., there will even be a birthday cake for the birthday boy and for those who are still there celebrating the Big Bang of classical music.
The FREE informal event – complete with interviews, snacks and beverages – will take place at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church (below) at 1833 Regent Street on Madison’s near west side close to Randall Elementary School.
How do you like your Bach?
Sung? Played on instruments?
As originally scored? As arranged and transcribed?
Played by students? By adult amateurs? Or by professionals?
Whatever you are looking for and love to hear, chances are good you will find it on the schedule. There will be all of the above, and more. There will be cantatas and concertos, suites and sonatas, preludes and fugues. (You can hear the instantly recognizable and frequently played Prelude No. 1 in C Major from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I, in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
The whole event will be streamed live locally and beyond.
To get an idea of what will happen from previous events, go to the previous blog post, which has a lot of photos, or use this blog’s search engine:
For more information, here is a link to the home website that has both the full schedule and a link for streaming as well as other information about free parking as well as how to participate in and support the event.
Here is the specific link to the full schedule, with names of performers and pieces:
https://bachclock.com/concert-schedule/
Take a look. Do you have any suggestions or recommendations about what others should attend and listen to? Leave a COMMENT if you want.
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: The world premiere of John Harbison’s Sonata for Viola and Piano this Sunday night headlines a busy weekend at the UW that includes wind music and band music
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By Jacob Stockinger
This is a big and busy weekend at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music.
The most publicized event this week, justifiably, is the world premiere of a new Sonata for Viola and Piano by composer John Harbison, who has won many awards and honors including a Pulitzer Prize and a MacArthur “genius” Fellowship. The guest pianist, from Minnesota, is Timothy Lovelace.
The premiere takes place in Mills Hall on Sunday night at 7:30 p.m. The Pro Arte Quartet will also play the “Sunrise” Quartet by Franz Joseph Haydn and “Four Encores for Stan” by Harbison. Pro Arte violist Sally Chisholm (below, in a photo by Rick Langer) will perform the new work that was written for her. It was commissioned by an anonymous patron to mark the composer’s 80th birthday.
For more information about the concert, the piece and tickets, go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/2018/12/17/world-premiere-of-john-harbisons-viola-sonata/
In addition, Harbison (below) will give a free and public master class on Monday, Feb. 18, from noon to 1:30 p.m. in the Mills Music Library Seminar Room (Room B162G in the Memorial Library).
But that is far from the only important or noteworthy event going on.
Here is a day-by-day schedule, not including the concert by the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras’ Youth Orchestra with guest clarinetist Amitai Vardi that takes place TODAY in Mills Hall at 4 p.m. Here is a link to more about the WYSO concert:
TODAY
At 3 p.m. in Morphy Hall, the winners’ FREE concert of the Irving Shain Woodwind-Piano Duo Competition will take place. To see the four winners and their complete programs, go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/irving-shain-woodwind-piano-duo-competition-winners-recital-2/
At 7:30 p.m., faculty member bassoonist Marc Vallon (below, in a photo by James Gill), who plays with the Wingra Wind Quintet, and friends will give a FREE concert. Music to be performed includes works by Robert Schumann, John Harbison, Ida Gotkowsky, Emmanuel Chabrier, Georges Bizet, Jules Massenet and Marc Vallon, although specific titles are not listed. For more information, go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/faculty-recital-marc-vallon-bassoon-2/
SUNDAY
At 2 p.m. in Mills Hall, a FREE concert will be the inaugural Wind Ensemble Concerto Competition and its winner Midori Samson (below). Scott Teeple is the faculty conductor, and Cole Hairston and Ross Wolf are graduate student conductors. The concert will be STREAMED LIVE. Here is a link to the streaming portal, which also has an archive of other streamed concerts: https://www.music.wisc.edu/video/
At 4 p.m. in Mills Hall, the UW Concert Band will perform a FREE concert under the baton of its retiring director Mike Leckrone (below).
The program, subject to change, include: “Nessum Dorma” by Giacomo Puccini; “Universal Judgment” by Camille de Nardis; “Psalm for Band” by Vincent Persichetti; “La Boutique Fantastique” by Gioacchino Rossini, arranged by Ottorino Respighi; and “Nobles of the Mystic Shrine” by John Philip Sousa.
Here is a link to the program: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/uw-concert-band/
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Classical music: Canadian violinist James Ehnes and American composer John Harbison are spotlighted this coming weekend by the Madison Symphony Orchestra
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By Jacob Stockinger
Internationally recognized and Grammy Award-winning Canadian violinist James Ehnes returns to Overture Hall this weekend to perform the Brahms Violin Concerto with the Madison Symphony Orchestra (MSO, below in a photo by Greg Anderson).
The program opens with a performance of American composer John Harbison’s The Most Often Used Chords, and closes with Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.
This program is a continuation of MSO music director John DeMain’s 25th anniversary season.
Performances will be held in Overture Hall, 201 State Street, on Friday, Feb. 15, at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, Feb. 16, at 8 p.m.; and Sunday, Feb. 17, at 2:30 p.m.
Tickets information is below.
“Mussorgsky’s masterpiece explores the colors of the orchestra — the correlation of an artist’s visual medium through the colors of sound and music. And its finale The Great Gate of Kiev (heard in the YouTube video at the bottom), is one of classical music’s greatest hits,” says DeMain (below, in a photo by Greg Anderson).
DeMain adds: “James Ehnes (below, in a photo by Benjamin Ealovega) is a violinist who is completely to my taste. With an absolutely gorgeous sound and consummate technique, he goes to the heart of the music. He will approach the Brahms violin concerto as a violinist’s violinist, adored by the public, by his colleagues and by me for the integrity in his playing.”
On this Friday afternoon, Feb. 15, from 2:30 to 4 p.m. in Mills Hall, Ehnes will give a free and public master class at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music.
DeMain continues: “We celebrate the 80th birthday of the internationally renowned — and Madison resident — composer John Harbison (below) with the first performance by the MSO of his delightful composition, The Most Often Used Chords.”
Harbison’s The Most Often Used Chords is a satirical piece of “anti-art art,” or “found object,” art. According to the composer, the found object that inspired this symphony (originally titled Fli Accordi Piu Usati) were the pre-printed “Fundamentals of Music” pages that he noticed in an Italian music-writing notebook. The work was originally composed in 1992 for the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.
Written in 1878, the Brahms Violin Concerto was dedicated to his friend Joseph Joachim and premiered in 1879 in Leipzig, with Joachim soloing and Brahms (below) conducting.
An equal partnership between soloist and ensemble is on full display in this concerto; it is not a piece in which the orchestra serves as mere backdrop. Rather, the violinist and orchestra are a team, collaborating and interacting to recount an elegant and nuanced musical drama.
Originally written as a piano composition, Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky was composed as a memorial to his friend, the Russian artist Viktor Hartmann, who died in 1873. The suite consists of 10 movements — each a musical depiction of one of 10 paintings by Hartmann. These movements are interspersed with a recurring promenade theme that represents a visitor strolling through the exhibition.
The arrangement by Maurice Ravel (below), produced in 1922, represents a virtuoso effort by a master composer. His instrumental colors — a trumpet solo for the opening Promenade, dark woodwind tones, the piccolo and high strings for the children’s “chicks in shells” — are widely admired. The influence of Ravel’s version may often be discerned in subsequent versions of the suite.
CONCERT AND TICKET DETAILS
The lobby opens 90 minutes prior to each concert. One hour before each performance, Randal Swiggum (below) will lead a 30-minute Prelude Discussion in Overture Hall to enhance concertgoers’ understanding and listening experience. It is free to ticket holders.
The symphony recommends concert attendees arrive early for each performance to make sure they have time to pass through Overture Center’s security stations, and so they can experience the Prelude Discussion.
Program notes for the concerts, written retired MSO trombonist J. Michael Allsen, are available online: http://bit.ly/feb2019programnotes
- Single Tickets are $18-$93 each and are on sale now at: https://madisonsymphony.org/ehnesthrough the Overture Center Box Office at 201 State Street, or by calling the Box Office at (608) 258-4141. Fees apply to online/phone sales.
- Groups of 10 or more can save 25% by calling the MSO office at (608) 257-3734. For more information, visit, https://www.madisonsymphony.org/groups.
- Student rush tickets can be purchased in person on the day of the concert at the Overture Center Box Office at 201 State Street. Students must show a valid student ID and can receive up to two $15 or $20 tickets. More information is at: https://www.madisonsymphony.org/studentrush
- Seniors age 62 and up receive 20% savings on advance and day-of-concert ticket purchases in select areas of the hall.
- Flex-ticket booklets of 10 vouchers for 18-19 symphony subscription concerts are available. Learn more at: https://madisonsymphony.org/flex
Discounted seats are subject to availability, and discounts may not be combined.
Major funding for the February concerts is provided by: The Madison Concourse Hotel and Governor’s Club, BMO Harris Bank, Boardman and Clark LLP, Capitol Lakes, Dr. Robert and Linda Graebner, Marvin J. Levy, and Cyrena and Lee Pondrom.
Additional funding is provided by Martha and Charles Casey, and by the Wisconsin Arts Board, with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts.
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Classical music: Prize-winning composer John Harbison has turned 80. In February, Madison will see many celebrations of his birthday, starting this Friday night with the Imani Winds
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By Jacob Stockinger
This Friday night, Feb. 1, a month-long celebration in Madison of the 80th birthday of critically acclaimed and prize-winning composer John Harbison (below) gets underway.
The festivities start with a concert by the Grammy-nominated Imani Winds (below), which will perform this Friday night at 7:30 p.m. – with a pre-concert lecture at 6 p.m. — in Shannon Hall at the Wisconsin Union Theater. The program includes Harbison’s popular Wind Quintet.
Here is a link with more information about the group, the program and tickets: https://union.wisc.edu/events-and-activities/event-calendar/event/imani-winds/
Among America’s most distinguished artistic figures, Harbison is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, among them a MacArthur ”genius grant’ and a Pulitzer Prize. His work encompasses all genres, from chamber music to opera, sacred to secular. (You can hear Harbison discuss his approach to composing in the YouTube video at the bottom.)
He has composed for most of America’s premiere musical institutions, including the Metropolitan Opera, the symphony orchestras of Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, Seattle and New York; and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival.
Institute Professor at MIT, Harbison serves as composer, conductor, performer, teacher and scholar. He divides his time between Cambridge, Mass., and Token Creek, Wis., where he co-founded and co-directs a summer chamber music festival with his violinist wife Rose Mary Harbison.
Other local birthday events include a performance by the Madison Symphony Orchestra; several chamber music and choral concerts at the First Unitarian Society of Madison, including one by the Mosaic Chamber Players; an exhibition of books and manuscripts at the Mills Music Library at UW-Madison’s Memorial Library.
There are also several concerts, including the world premiere of a new Sonata for Viola, and a composer residency at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mead Witter School of Music; and the world premiere of a new motet by the Madison Choral Project.
Harbison will also be featured in radio interviews and broadcast retrospectives by both Wisconsin Public Radio and WORT community radio.
National and international celebrations include other world premieres of commissions, many new recordings and the publication of Harbison’s autobiographical book about Johann Sebastian Bach, “What Do We Make of Bach?”
For more details about the many local celebrations, you can go to the following two links. Schedules, programs and updates – events are subject to change — will be posted at www.tokencreekfestival.org and www.johnharbison.com.
To receive “Harbison Occasions,” an intermittent e-newsletter, write to arsnova.artsmanagement@gmail.com
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Classical music: Legendary Austrian pianist and scholar Paul Badura-Skoda dies at 91. In the 1960s, he was artist-in-residence at the UW-Madison School of Music
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By Jacob Stockinger
Paul Badura-Skoda, the celebrated Austrian pianist who was equally known for his performances and his scholarship, and who was artist-in-residence at the UW-Madison in the mid-1960s until 1970, died this past Tuesday at 91.
A Vienna native, Badura-Skoda was especially known for his interpretations of major Classical-era composers who lived and worked in that city including Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert.
He was the only pianist to have recorded the complete sonatas by those composers on both the modern piano and the fortepiano, the appropriate period instrument.
If memory serves, Badura-Skoda’s last appearances in Madison were almost a decade ago for concerts in which he played: the last piano sonatas of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert; a Mozart piano concerto with the UW Chamber Orchestra; and a solo recital of Bach, Mozart, Schubert and Chopin at Farley’s House of Pianos.
But he also performed and recorded Bach, Chopin and Schumann among others. And Badura-Skoda was also renowned as a conductor, composer, editor and teacher.
You can find many of his recordings and interviews on YouTube. Normally, this blog uses shorter excerpts. But the legendary Paul Badura-Soda is special. So in the YouTube video at the bottom you can hear Badura-Skoda’s complete last recital of Schubert (Four Impromptus, D. 899 or Op. 90), Schumann (“Scenes of Childhood”, Op. 15) and Mozart (Sonata in C Minor, K. 457). He performed it just last May at the age of 91 at the Vienna Musikverein, where the popular New Year concerts take place.
Here are links to several obituaries:
Here is one from the British Gramophone Magazine:
https://www.gramophone.co.uk/classical-music-news/pianist-paul-badura-skoda-has-died-at-the-age-of-91
Here is one from WFMT radio station in Chicago, which interviewed him:
https://www.wfmt.com/2019/09/26/pianist-paul-badura-skoda-dies-at-age-91/
Here is one, with some surprisingly good details, from Limelight Magazine:
https://www.limelightmagazine.com.au/news/paul-badura-skoda-has-died/
And here is his updated Wikipedia entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Badura-Skoda
But you will notice a couple of things.
One is that The Ear could not find any obituaries from such major mainstream media as The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. But each had many other feature stories about and reviews of Badura-Skoda’s concerts over the years in their areas.
The other noteworthy thing is that none of the obituaries mentions Badura-Skoda’s years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music in the 1960s, where he helped to raise the profile and prestige of the School of Music. Getting Badura-Skoda to join the university was considered quite an unexpected coup.
So here are two links to UW-Madison press releases that discuss that chapter of his life and career.
Here is an archival story from 1966 when Badura-Skoda first arrived at the UW-Madison:
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/UW/UW-idx?type=turn&entity=UW.v67i8.p0011&id=UW.v67i8&isize=text
And here is a press release that came from the UW-Madison News Service eight years ago on the occasion of one of Badura-Skoda’s many visits to and performances in Madison:
https://news.wisc.edu/writers-choice-madison-welcomes-badura-skoda-again-and-again/
Rest in Peace, maestro, and Thank You.
It would be nice if Wisconsin Public Radio paid homage with some of Badura-Skoda’s recordings since a complete edition was issued last year on the occasion of his 90th birthday.
If you wish to pay your own respects or leave your memories of Paul Badura-Skoda and his playing, please leave something in the comment section.
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